heres a bit about the relic of the holy crib in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.Regarding faith/seeking proof of authenticity: How did the Church come to the conclusion that it is an authentic historical relic of Christ? Was there a continuous “chain of command” for its maintenance throughout the ages? Was it through a Divine revelation?
I’ve been reassured on any number of occasions that the CC is scrupulous in verifying miracles; that it eliminates all possible natural explanations before declaring something supernaturally derived. IOW, I’m not doing anything that the church itself has not done. That is pretty much the opposite of the mindset you’ve described.you are using an argument foreign to catholicism. remember that it is catholicism that holds and teaches people to ‘go the extra mile’, be generous, etc. that is why catholicism has retained all of its ancient traditions over two thousand years while all non-catholic christians chart a continuous progression of shedding more and more traditions and teachings.
catholicism is a hoarder of ancient tradition, it trusts itself throughout its history to preserve and provide the truth faithfully.
your argument is foreign to this way of being; your way is distrustful, ungenerous, and disregarding of tradition. its more like a reactionary protestant fundamentalist who eradicates the old because it is tradition and can neither be proven nor trusted.
catholicism is much more interesting than either this type of distrustful thinking or that other type, the scientific literal-thinking type, which demands proof. catholicism has those qualities of expansive generosity, faith, and trust which make it very attractive because these are positive qualities; whereas your arguments will necessarily always be an increasingly constrictive set of negativity.
According to that article, the basilica also claimed to have milk from the Virgin Mary at one time.heres a bit about the relic of the holy crib in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.
"The chapel centers on a reliquary containing part of the Holy Crib, which was carried to Rome by Christian refugees during the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land in the 7th century. "
The multiplication of sacred relics tends to undermine belief in more likely ones. On the face of it, relics from the crucifixion are more likely than from the nativity. So many locks of Lincoln’s hair were cut off by the coroner that the back of his head was almost bald. The much maligned true cross fragments, might act actually be pieces of the actual cross, whittled away by his followers and presented much later to the Empress. As to the location of the tomb, even the destruction of the city and its reconstruction by the Romans after the Second Revolution does not mean that its location would be lost.That it was already marked by a shrine is suggested by the fact that there was a temple at the site when Helena came. The area enclosed by the walls in not so large that the memory of this could not be passed down from generation to generation, and of course Christians, unlike Jews, were not barred from the city after the 130s.According to that article, the basilica also claimed to have milk from the Virgin Mary at one time.
understandable because you are now talking about two different things, miracles, and as you said yourself, i think, the unmiraculous preservation of wood for two thousand years.I’ve been reassured on any number of occasions that the CC is scrupulous in verifying miracles; that it eliminates all possible natural explanations before declaring something supernaturally derived. IOW, I’m not doing anything that the church itself has not done. That is pretty much the opposite of the mindset you’ve described.
But centuries upon centuries would have elapsed. To my way of thinking, the fundamental question would be whether the Holy Family’s taking all or a piece of the wooden manger would have been consistent with the Jewish mindset prevalent at the time. Breaking off a piece, or hauling the whole feed trough back to Nazareth? Clearly the Holy Family wouldn’t have just broken off a piece. Wouldn’t Joseph, as a carpenter, wanted to make an actual cradle for the Child, as opposed to using an animal feed trough? 21st Century Americans are all about souvenirs; but 1st Century Jews? So 30 years pass before Jesus becoming a public figure - and even then, his closest Apostles still struggled with the idea of his divinity. What would the trigger have been to head to Bethlehem and find his manger/cradle? And after 30+ years, who’s to say the farmer still had it or knew the right one, or whether, after 3 decades of agricultural use, it was still in existence?understandable because you are now talking about two different things, miracles, and as you said yourself, i think, the unmiraculous preservation of wood for two thousand years.
the provenance is the tradition of the wood being brought by pilgrims to rome. and we don’t know that that did not happen. in fact the fact of having such a tradition is in favour of it being true, whereas not having such a tradition would not be in favour of it being true.
its tradition, so you cannot really argue against it. there are houses here where i live that are 900 years old and are still inhabited. there are corbeled stone tombs here that are 5000 years old, older than the pyramids in Egypt, and you can still crawl inside and sit on the same stone bench and look at the sunset in the west. the tombs were so well designed that they are not damp even after 5000 years, they have lines carved on the tops of the corbeled stone slabs to channel rainwater away to the outside.But centuries upon centuries would have elapsed. To my way of thinking, the fundamental question would be whether the Holy Family’s taking all or a piece of the wooden manger would have been consistent with the Jewish mindset prevalent at the time. Breaking off a piece, or hauling the whole feed trough back to Nazareth? Clearly the Holy Family wouldn’t have just broken off a piece. Wouldn’t Joseph, as a carpenter, wanted to make an actual cradle for the Child, as opposed to using an animal feed trough? 21st Century Americans are all about souvenirs; but 1st Century Jews? So 30 years pass before Jesus becoming a public figure - and even then, his closest Apostles still struggled with the idea of his divinity. What would the trigger have been to head to Bethlehem and find his manger/cradle? And after 30+ years, who’s to say the farmer still had it or knew the right one, or whether, after 3 decades of agricultural use, it was still in existence?
The validity of the tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulcre has been upheld by even irreligious archaeologists in terms of that site having been outside the walls of Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion (vs. claims for the so-called “Garden Tomb.”) But a piece of wood from the manger? Just too many questions and relic abuses from the period of that pilgrimage to Rome.